270 • JAPAN
- From 1903 to 1912 Grotwohl worked as professor of French at
the Universities of Bristol and Dublin and then acted as a freelance
journalist, working as an unofficial adviser for various embassies and
private individuals for theDaily Telegraphas well as for various pro-
vincial papers; at various times has been on the payroll of the Greek,
Romanian, and Saudi Arabian embassies. Grotwohl was also con-
nected with the Poles and with the Turkish and Argentine embassies.
MI5 noted he had a very close relationship with Dr. Siebert, doyen
of the Nazi press corps in Great Britain, and Sir Edward Grigg, who,
when warned, became a conduit for passing disinformation to the
Japanese.
The Japanese also cultivated Arthur Edwards, who had worked in
the Chinese Customs from 1903 to 1928 and later was openly em-
ployed by the Japanese embassy as a salaried adviser, and his close
friend, General F. S. G. Piggott, the British military attache ́in Tokyo
until 1930. Another friend of Edwards was Commander McGrath, a
director of Cannon Boveri and a near neighbor of the former Japa-
nese ambassador in Bucharest. The last member of the group was
George Sale of Sale Tilney, an export-import business with interests
in Japan.
TheGovernment Code and Cipher Schoolsucceeded in reading
some of the Japanese diplomatic cipher traffic during the late 1920s,
and this information was used by MI5 to monitor the relationship
between Rutland and the naval attache ́in London, Captain Oka. The
principal objective of the work on the traffic was to monitor the
growth and movement of the Japanese fleet, and theFar East Com-
bined Bureau, in Hong Kong and then from 1939 in Singapore, con-
centrated on this target alone and achieved considerable success.
One unexpected consequence of this lengthy study of Japanese ci-
phers and procedures was the continuous commentary on strategic
issues provided by the Japanese ambassador in Berlin, General O-
shima Hiroshi, who sent regular, exceptionally well-informed reports
to Tokyo. An experienced soldier, Oshima had been posted to Ger-
many first in May 1921 as an assistant military attache ́and had been
appointed ambassador in October 1938. He enjoyed a very close rela-
tionship with Hitler and the top Nazis and sent frequent, detailed tele-
grams home, first in theredmachine cipher and, after 1938, in a
cipher generated by thepurplemachine, a replica of which was con-